


but i'll cut off my hand before i ever reach for you again

by cipherwriter



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Hurt No Comfort, Murder, Other, compelling someone to death, kind of sort of accidental, paranoid jonathan sims, post-episode 172, this is kind of jonmartin but it is incredibly toxic so it will not be tagged as such, this one is very heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24794500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cipherwriter/pseuds/cipherwriter
Summary: Jon just wishes Martin would let himself be compelled. Just so they could both know for sure if he's being manipulated. Wouldn't that be for the best?orJon's compelled an avatar of the Lonely to death once already. What if he did it again?
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	but i'll cut off my hand before i ever reach for you again

**Author's Note:**

> martin dies in this one, fair warning

“You’re still thinking about it, aren’t you?” Jon asked eventually. They’d been silent for a long while after walking away from the theater. There didn’t seem to be much to say.

Martin was walking hunched in on himself, folding his arms over his chest. His defensive stance. He hated it, hated being reduced back to this after all this time. But that place… well he’d been used, manipulated, disregarded enough times in his life to not care for it much.

“Don’t look into my mind, Jon,” Martin answers, clipped, angry. He is not in the mood to have this conversation again.

“I didn’t,” Jon replies hastily. “I just- you still seem upset.”

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of tired of going through all these weird places that seem to embody all my specific traumas!” Martin starts to unfurl himself as he gets worked up. “I’m tired of this place, and this life, and now I can’t even know if my decisions are my own! What if- what if nothing we’re doing even matters? If it’s all part of The Plan or something?” Martin sighs. “I’m just so sick of being manipulated.”

Martin had stopped walking as he’d ranted, so now he and Jon are just standing there in the empty wasteland. Jon runs a hand through his hair.

“I, uh- I get it,” he says. “The Web- well, it’s never been one of my favorites either.”

Martin should take that for what it is, a moment of connection, something to comfort him, but he’s still just so angry. So instead he says, “Yeah, well, at least you can have some that you’d qualify as your favorites! I don’t have anything, Jon! It’s all equally bad, all of the time! None of it is ever anything but ugly and horrifying for me! At least you get some sort of benefit from it!”

“That is not fair, Martin,” Jon says, a sharp glint in his eyes. “You know that I don’t want this either.”

“I know you don’t!” Martin yells. “But at least you have power here! At least you’re not just some helpless nobody!”

“Oh, yes, and my power has done us a whole lot of good, has it?” Jon snaps. “Really helped with ending the apocalypse, right? Getting us back to normal?”

“No, but it’s- God, Jon, at least it’s something! Do you know how lucky you are for that? I don’t have anything! At all!” Martin presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, pushing his glasses up to his forehead. He’s being unfair. He knows that. Jon doesn’t actually deserve any of this. 

He takes what should be a steadying breath, but it comes out shaky and teary. “I’m sorry. I know, I’m being awful. It’s not- it’s not your fault. I just- I feel so powerless here. So- so… confused.”

Martin feels Jon’s hand on his arm. “I- I know it’s all wrong right now, Martin. The- well, the whole world is wrong. The offer still stands, if you want to know for sure whether or not you’re being manipulated.”

Martin recoils away from Jon, and the tears in his eyes are angry instead of just frustrated now. “Are you kidding, Jon? Now, really, you’re- you’re gonna suggest that? Mucking around in my head? After everything I was just saying?”

Jon takes a step back, and there’s shock in his face, which quickly shifts into reproach and then outright anger. “Yes, Martin, I am, because I thought it might help with your self professed confusion.”

“It wouldn’t! Or- or maybe it would help with that, maybe, but it would only bring up more problems! What if-” Martin laughs, bitter and a bit wild, “what if I am being controlled, huh? What then? You just go on without me, leave me behind?”

“No, Martin, of course not, you- of course not,” Jon says and his face seems so full of grief but that answer is still not good enough for Martin.

“Then what do you do? You keep me with you when we can never know if what I’m doing is part of some plan to- to hurt you, or- or keep the world like this, or-” Martin tugs his hair in frustration. “We don’t even know what the plan is so how can we ever know if what we’re doing is playing into it or not?!”

“I can tell you!” Jon yells. “I can Know if you would just let me!”

“You don’t know that, Jon!” Martin shouts and God his blood is boiling. He is certain he has never been this mad at Martin before. “God, your ego! I mean, you said yourself that you couldn’t actually understand the plan, so how do you know that you can tell whether or not I’m being used for it?!”

“You could at least let me try!” Jon snaps. “Why are you so against me looking? It could give answers that I- we need!”

Martin laughs at this, a harsh bark. “Oh I heard that little slip up. The answers you need, this is all about your own curiosity, and I’m just another Statement.”

“Matin, no, I’m sorry, I- I didn’t mean-“

“You really are far gone, aren’t you?” Martin says, and he can see Jon wince, but he can’t seem to care that much right now. “I mean, you haven’t cared about something so- so trivial as privacy in a long time, but God Jon, I thought you were better than this!”

“Oh, well gee Martin, I wonder why I’m so monstrous now,” Jon snarls, hardening from his hurt. “Weren’t you the one who wanted to, how did you say, ‘go full Kill Bill’ on these monsters? And now I’ve gotten worse, I sure wonder why!”

“You’re the one who chose to keep going on your own personal revenge quest!”

“Yes, after you sided with Helen to act like I’m some post-apocalypse guard dog! And don’t act like you’re above revenge when you wanted me to kill Oliver Banks!” Jon yelled. He was getting angrier, his extra eyes popping into view on his cheeks, his hands, his neck, all growing green and getting brighter by the second. “You know, now that I think about it, that sure does seem like manipulation, doesn’t it? The kind that someone wanting to keep the world like this might use? After all, if I become fully monstrous, then I won’t be trying to save the world anymore, will I? And if I’m not trying to save the world, then who is?”

“Don’t you fucking dare, Jon,” Martin says, low and warning and furious. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that. I am not working with the Web.”

“Well pardon me if I don’t trust the man who keeps getting calls from Annabelle Cane. If you were really innocent, why wouldn’t you just let me Look and Know for sure? Nothing to lose, right?”

“Because I have a right to privacy! I have a right to not have my own thoughts ripped out of me!” Martin’s face is a deep beet red and tears are blurring up his vision. He curses the fact that he’s an angry crier, but he refuses to wipe the tears from his eyes. To show weakness right now.

“Well I have the right to Know,” Jon says and his voice is taking on a strange resonance.

“No, Jon, no you don’t!” Martin all but screams. He can feel fear creeping in, and that triggers more fear. He’s scared because Jon is making him scared, and he can’t tell if he’s doing it with his power or not. Can’t tell if it’s intentional. But the fear has not covered the anger. “You have no right to know anything! Ever! You’re not entitled to know people’s thoughts! The power to know doesn’t mean the- the right to!” Martin’s voice breaks a little. “And- and you’re supposed to trust me anyway!”

Jon doesn’t react to that. His normal eyes have turned green now, too. Green and bright and glowing. And there are so many. They cover his body, every inch of it, and even then that’s not enough space to contain them all as they float around him, too.

And they are all, each and every one, looking straight at Martin.

**“WHETHER OR NOT I HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW, MARTIN BLACKWOOD, I WILL KNOW.”** The static Martin had heard when Jon had smote Not!Sasha and the others is back. It’s back and it’s directed at him now. His heart races and no, no he wasn’t supposed to be scared of Jon, it was always supposed to be the two of them against it all, but he can’t help the trembling in his legs. And Jon-

Jon smiles, a smile like the curl of a claw, like the curdling of milk, like the crescent shape of fingernails indented in tightly curled fists, painful and spiteful and cruel.

“Jon. Jon, what are you doing,” Martin says and it’s not a question though the words should be because they both already know what he’s doing.

**“TELL ME WHAT ANNABELLE CANE TOLD YOU. TELL ME ABOUT YOUR INVOLVEMENT WITH THE WEB.”**

“Jon, no, please,” Martin grunts. He’s resisting. He’s doing his best. It hurts, but he’s not going to give this up. “Please, just stop.”

**“TELL. ME.”**

“No,” Martin gasps, and he can’t say anything more this time, can’t come up with more words through the pain and the concentration of resisting. If he opens his mouth again the answers will come tumbling out and he will not allow Jon to take this from him. He will not let himself be used for another’s gain again.

**“JUST TELL ME!”** Jon’s voice crescendos. The static whine builds around them and Martin can feel the eyes trying to look into him, unravel him, but he will hold himself together no matter what. 

Distantly, Martin hears screaming. He does not know if it is his or Jon’s. It’s probably both. All Martin knows is that he is on his knees, curled in on himself, clutching himself closed with his arms like a box in which he is desperately trying to contain a wild animal. He is so scared. And he would be okay if he would just let the animal loose, just let Jon compel him, but he won’t. He will die on this hill.

And then, he does. It is loud and jagged like electricity, like a TV error screen, but it is quiet too, like a sugar cube dissolving into nothing, like a dandelion being blown into the wind and vanishing.

And then it is like nothing.

Jon screams, a loud angry noise, louder and more discordant than any human would be able to withstand. Good thing there were no humans around.

In the end, the worst part about it is that Jon still doesn’t Know. And now, he never will.

**Author's Note:**

> i had a conversation yesterday about this and then the new episode inspired me to actually write a fic based on it. sorry


End file.
